Category: Music cataloging software
Name of tool: MusicMatch Jukebox v. 5.1
Company name: Music Match, Inc.
Price: free or $20 for features upgrade
URL: http://www.musicmatch.com
/
Windows platforms supported: 95, 98, NT, 2000 (see Cons, below)
Quick description: Powerful software to organize, record, and copy
music to your PC.
Strom-meter:
**** = very cool, very useful
Key features:
Pros:
Simple interface, powerful set of features that allow you to manage
your music collection on your PC.
Cons:
You'll need a good-quality sound card and relatively recent CD-ROM
drive to obtain the best recordings, along with at least 10 GB of free
disk space to hold several dozen CDs. MusicMatch's catalog isn't as
useful if you have an extensive classic music collection.
Description:
In my house--while I'm at work or at play--music will never be the
same, largely thanks to MusicMatch Jukebox. This wonderful program has
allowed me and my family to listen to our entire collection of CD music
without having to shuffle the CDs in and out of our stereo. Why?
Because all of our CDs are contained on our computer's hard drive, and
because MusicMatch makes it so much easier to find the right song, or
songs, to fit the mood.
MusicMatch does several things: converts ("rips") your CDs into MP3
files; plays these files through your computer; organizes a catalog of
these files; and creates or "burns" your own recordable CDs. If you are
connected to the Internet, the software can query CDDB.com and
automatically label the tracks and CD for you, which is a real plus.
There are other programs that can do these tasks, but I like the clean
interface of MusicMatch and the obvious controls. To play a particular
song, you scroll through your catalog and either drag and drop the song
title into the playlist portion of the screen or double-click on it.
You can easily assemble playlists and save them, or have the program
become an "AutoDJ" and play songs in random order within particular
parameters (all of your jazz titles, or all of your Beatles albums, for
example). Other competitors include the traditional media players from
Real Networks, Inc. and Microsoft, the current versions of which
include music cataloging and ripping/burning features, but don't have
as strong cataloging and presentation features -- yet.
If you are new to this notion, be warned that it will take some time to
get used to playing music on your PC. For one thing, you'll need to
have a decent sound card and CD-ROM drive. How do you know you have
substandard components? Just listen to the music you record -- if it
sounds bad, you'll need to upgrade. And you'll also need a cable to
connect your PC's sound card to your stereo, or at least to a good set
of speakers. MusicMatch's web site sells such a cable, which is a real
bonus. Finally, you'll need to experiment with your PC system to
determine the optimal sampling bit-rate for recording quality and
whether to use digital or analog recording modes. For example, on some
of my computers with older CD-ROM drives, I got better results using
the analog recording method.
There are some drawbacks, of course. MusicMatch's catalog has columns
for song title, artist, album and genre and you can sort alphabetically
on any column. Missing, however, is provision for classical music by
both conductor and composer. While you can enter this information into
one of these categories manually, the process is tedious and you will
have to be consistent and accurate if your time is going to be worth
the effort. I would prefer to see additional columns to accommodate
classical listeners. Some CDs that contain computer programs as "bonus"
tracks might also take to initially load the CD before MusicMatch can
record them properly. Lastly, as you accumulate music, you will soon
find out that your capacious hard drive can be confining: about 10 or
so CDs can fill up a gigabyte of disk space. Still, once you get the
hang of it, you'll never want to shuffle CDs into your stereo's CD
player again.
The plus version (for $20) adds the ability to record at faster speeds,
something useful if you are just starting to collect your music on your
PC and have to rip through tons of CDs. But for most of us, the free
version will do just fine.
Strom-meter key:
**** = Very cool, very useful
*** = Hey, not bad. One notch below very cool
** = A tad shaky to install and use but has some value.
* = Don't waste your time. Minimal real value.
David Strom is president of his own consulting firm in Port Washington,
NY. He has tested hundreds of computer products over the past two
decades working as a computer journalist, consultant and corporate IT
manager. Since 1995, he has written a weekly series of essays on web
technologies and marketing called Web Informant. You can send him email
at mailto:david@strom.com.
